Greg Ploetz’s former roommate and teammate, David Richardson, presents Deb Ploetz with the check from the Longhorn Support Group.

My story on Greg Ploetz, the former Texas defensive tackle from the Longhorns’ famous national championship team in 1969, is in the Sunday paper and here.

I quote Greg several times in the story, simply noting he was speaking in 2001. Perhaps some wondered why I didn’t credit or explain where those quotes came from. I left that unanswered in the story and this is a more appropriate spot to confirm what many reading the story might have known, anyway: The 2001 quotes from Greg in the story and much of the material about his background were gleaned from my interview with him while researching my book, Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming, about the 1969 Texas-Arkansas game in Fayetteville. That’s not meant to be a plug; it’s an explanation because the book came out in late 2002, not last week. I spent much of the summer of 2001 in Texas and Arkansas, then made return trips to Austin and Dallas in the fall.

Before speaking and having dinner with Deb Ploetz and Greg’s former roommate and teammate, David Richardson, on Tuesday, and then meeting them to see Greg in the Arvada memory care assisted living facility on Wednesday, I again listened to my 2001 interview with Greg. I pulled the cassettes out of the huge carrying case devoted to the HHNC interviews, again smiling about (and also being proud of) the line in famed sportswriter Blackie Sherrod’s column, where he noted I “must have worn out a dozen tape recorders” researching the book. (I actually made it through with just one; the major frustrating experience has been repeatedly realizing others have not been reluctant to, um, appropriate and run with the book’s revelatory material about what was going on around those teams and the 1969 game.)

Greg Ploetz with daughter Erin Cherkassky and her son, Lukas.

I’m sad that Greg and I weren’t able to significantly chat again during my visit with him Wednesday.

As noted in the story, David presented Deb with a $14,000 check from the Longhorn Support Group, led by former Longhorns halfback Billy Dale.

Many in the LSG still are shaken by the September 2013 death of James Street, the charismatic Wishbone wizard and the father of former Rockies pitcher Huston Street. Street died of a heart attack. Also, James Saxton, the Texas running back who finished third in the 1961 Heisman Trophy voting (behind Syracuse’s Ernie Davis and Ohio State’s Bob Ferguson), passed away at age 74 last week after a long battle with dementia. At least one other prominent player in the Texas program from 1969-72 also is fighting dementia.

In communicating with Dale during this process, and telling him how much I respected how the LSG has responded to help Ploetz and other former Longhorns and their families, I mentioned that my father was the head coach at Oregon during that period, and I’ve been reminded again and again over the years about how the bonds between teammates — and between coaches and players — last. The latest was when three of my siblings and I were present as our father posthumously was honored at the Oregon spring game on May 3, tying it the military appreciation theme of the afternoon because he had been a decorated P-38 fighter pilot during World War II … and never allowed that to be included in his coaching biography. (He was an Army Air Forces contemporary of Ploetz’s father, Frederick Ploetz, the P-40 fighter pilot, also in the Pacific Theater.)

I feel comfortable with sharing what Dale wrote me about the teammates’ bonds issue:

“Bonding only occurs when the respect of a teammate is earned. We all respect each other. We struggled through the mental anguish of trying to be a starter for the Longhorns. We shared victories, losses, work-outs, fellowship, sorrow, pain, and joy together and now that most of us are entering the 4th quarter of our lives, we huddle again as a team to help each other. The teammate bond is not broken and the respect for each other remains years after our glory days at UT have ended.”

I was the “neutral” keynote speaker at the joint 35th reunion of the 1969 Texas and Arkansas teams in Fayetteville in September 2004, in conjunction with another Texas at Arkansas regular season game. Greg and Deb attended and I enjoyed speaking with them there. The picture of Greg and I together at left came from that reunion. As noted in the story, Deb believes Greg started showing the first signs of early onset dementia the next year.

My thoughts are with Greg, and I salute Deb for her loving support of Greg, and the Longhorn Support Group for stepping up and reminding that the bonds of sports last.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.